Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed (9 page)

Apparently, she was going to get the chance to
find out. They’d left Atlanta behind and were headed into the
mountains of north Georgia.

She’d been relegated to the backseat where she
could see almost nothing even before it got dark. Lucien was
driving and Damien riding shotgun. Basil and Kane had lingered
behind. She hadn’t understood why until she’d overheard them
talking to Damien on their walkie-talkies about making sure the
back trail was clear.

They left the interstate shortly after they
left Atlanta traffic behind and got on a fairly well trafficked two
lane highway. The traffic began to fall off fairly quickly, though,
and before long there was only a smattering of headlights on the
road.

One pair consistently stayed about four car
lengths behind them. She glanced back uneasily when she noticed
Damien studying the lights in the rearview mirror. He lifted his
radio. “That you behind us, Basil?”

“
Affirmative.”

The cloak and dagger shit was unnerving. The
worst of it was she still wasn’t reassured. If anything, she felt
more threatened. The behavior of the guys confirmed her danger even
while their presence was insurance against it. And the confirmation
of a legitimate threat was far more powerful than their presence
was reassuring.

She had liked it better when she’d been
blissfully ignorant of danger.

Of course, Kane had told her that they’d been
keeping an eye on her for a while. They’d escorted her from her
home to Atlanta. That was how and why they just ‘happened’ to be
near enough at hand to help her out when her car broke down. But
she hadn’t known they were there and she hadn’t felt threatened by
the DA’s certainty that her life was in danger. The murderer had
been caught. He was in jail and she was safe. All she’d had to deal
with was the aftermath of the trauma and worry about having to go
to court.

Now all she could think about was that the DA
was afraid she wasn’t going to make it to court to
testify.

She’d managed to scare herself pretty
thoroughly with her thoughts on the trip to the cabin by the time
they got there. It had seemed to take
forever—
at least as
long as it took to drive from south Georgia to Atlanta
—
and
she was exhausted enough by that time, despite her fears, that all
she really wanted to do was crawl in a bed and sleep until the
trial.

Lucien—this time she was sure it was
Lucien—showed her to a bedroom. Basil and Kane brought her
suitcases while he moved around the room grabbing up clothing and
balling it under one arm, checked the windows and the bathroom that
was attached.

Laurie, who’d immediately moved to the bed and
plopped down since there weren’t any chairs in the room, watched
them uneasily.

He glanced at her when Basil and Kane had
trouped out again and disappeared.

“
You sure we’re going to be ok
here?” she asked worriedly.

He moved toward her and sat down on the bed
beside her, looping an arm around her and gathering her close to
his side. “We’re going to take good care of you, Laurie. We aren’t
going to let anything happen to you. I swear,” he murmured in a
rumbling growl of a voice, tapping her chin to get her to look at
him. “You believe me, right?”

She stared up into his eyes, feeling warmth
spread through her. It was
so
strange! She should have felt
uncomfortable in his embrace. She hardly knew him, and yet it
didn’t feel that way. He
felt
completely familiar. She felt
an odd little déjà vu moment as she stared into his eyes, as if
they’d done this before. She felt as completely comfortable curled
up against him as if it was something they’d done many, many times.
Swallowing with an effort, she nodded and then settled her head
against his shoulder. “I do.”

He stroked a large hand over her head and then
used his thumb beneath her jaw to force her to look at him again.
“Good girl. We won’t let you down.”

She thought he was going to kiss her for
several faltering heartbeats, but he merely tapped her nose, smiled
and got up to stretch. Then he strode from the room and shut the
door.

Laurie stared at the door when he left, trying
to decide what time it was and if it was late enough to be
acceptable to go to bed. Or if it was still so early they’d think
she was a wimp for flaking out or worse, some sort of country hick
or prude—bed at sundown!

The smell of frying bacon clinched
it.

She’d forgotten she hadn’t had a chance to eat
after the deposition. She’d been making phone calls then almost
gotten murdered and then they’d gotten in a hurry to leave
….

Grabbing a suitcase, she found something more
comfortable to wear and headed into the bathroom to see if a quick
shower would revive her enough to keep her from falling asleep in
her plate. It helped a little. She was still towel drying her hair
when she left the bathroom. There was a tap on the door before she
could grab her brush.

“
You hungry?”

She thought it was Basil’s voice at the door,
though she hadn’t heard him speak enough to positively identify his
voice. She’d heard Lucien and Damien enough, though, to recognize
them so it had to be Basil or Kane. “Starving! Am I
invited?”

He chuckled as she opened the door. She sure
hoped it wasn’t the fresh scrubbed, wild hair that did it. His eyes
were dancing, though, as they roamed over her. “Naw. I just wanted
to see if you wanted some so I could say no.”

Laurie smiled back at him. “I’ll arm wrestle
you for some of that bacon.”

His amusement deepened and his gaze warmed as
it moved over her again, this time speculatively. “I wouldn’t mind
…. Never mind. Come on and eat before it gets cold. Nothing cools
faster than eggs.”

Nodding, Laurie headed back to the vanity
mirror to rake the snarls from her hair quickly and then left the
bedroom. Neither of the twins were present, but she was just in
time to catch one heading out the door with bacon and eggs rolled
into a piece of toast in one hand.

She lifted her brows questioningly at Basil as
she headed to the small table to join him. “Where is
everybody?”

He dug into his plate of bacon and eggs.
“Damien just went out to check the perimeter. Lucien and Kane are
at the lookout watching to make sure we weren’t
followed.”

Laurie frowned. “I thought that was why you
and Kane took another car and followed behind us?”

He nodded. “Nobody followed us out of town,
but this is the age of electronic gadgets. We didn’t get the chance
to make a full sweep. Even if we had we could still have missed
something. So we’ll keep a close watch to make sure nobody managed
to plant a tracking device.”

Laurie nodded, feeling her appetite vanish
abruptly. The little bit of bacon and eggs she managed to eat after
that hit her stomach like rocks and made her feel vaguely
queasy.

Basil reached across the table and squeezed
her hand reassuringly. “Hey! Don’t look like that. Nobody is going
to get past us.”

Laurie smiled with an effort, trying not to
think about the possibility that somebody would even though she
knew if they were determined enough they were liable to no matter
how well the guys thought they were watching her. There were guns
that could shoot for miles and crack shots that could hit their
target at those distances. They could blow her head off without
getting anywhere near her.

When she’d eaten all she thought she could
manage without throwing up, she pushed the plate back. “That was
good.”

Basil eyed the half eaten bacon and eggs a
little skeptically. “I thought you were starving?”

Laurie laughed. “I was. On my best day I can’t
eat a half a pound of bacon and a half a dozen eggs!”

He looked her over. “No? I guess I
overestimated you—maybe a little.”

Laurie studied him and finally shook her head.
“This is going to sound weird, I know, but did you ever meet
someone and feel like you’d met them before?”

He looked startled for a split second but
shrugged. “Lately? Yeah.”

Chapter Seven

Lucien supposed the clash between him
and Damien was inevitable, but he’d expected Damien to show more
sense than to start shit when the risks to Laurie were so
high.

“
What was that all about
in the room with Laurie while ago?” Damien growled as soon as he
spotted Lucien.

Lucien was bone tired from being on
watch for hours and not in the mood to put up with an interrogation
from his younger brother. “Let’s try ‘none of your fucking
business, little brother’,” he growled, moving to pass.

Damien punched him on the
shoulder. “Don’t start that little brother shit! You weren’t more
than ten minutes ahead of me,
big
brother, and you didn’t answer my
question.”

Lucien paused, glaring at him. “Just
when did you get to thinking I was supposed to answer to you,
little brother?” he snarled warningly.

“
You guys going to keep
Laurie up all night fighting over her like two dogs quarreling over
a bone? She’s a client, you know—and nobody’s property.”

Damien and Lucien turned to glare at
Basil, who was propped against one of the posts on the porch of the
cabin.

“
Stay out of this,” Damien
growled. “I want to know what he was doing cuddling her … like he’s
claimed her or something.”

“
Well want with one hand
and shit in the other and see which fills up faster,” Lucien
growled.

Damien punched him. Lucien saw it
coming but dodged too late to miss it. He was a lot quicker
retaliating, punching Damien twice and then dancing out of the way
when Damien swung at him again.

“
I’m beginning to think
all your theorizing was just a bunch of bullshit,” Damien growled.
“Didn’t look to me like you were too worried about a collision
between matter and anti-matter when you were wallowing all over
Laurie.”

Lucien glared at him. “And obviously
neither were you or you wouldn’t have been fucking slobbering all
over her the other night. But you’ve got a point. Seeing as how you
volunteered to test the theory and proved it wrong, I realized that
was one thing, at least, that we didn’t have to worry
about.”

“
So you figure on moving
in on Laurie? Is that how it is?”

“
I’m figuring that
whatever I do is none of your fucking business,” Lucien
growled.

“
I’m making it my
business,” Damien snarled back at him.

“
You two might as well go
on in there and ask her which of you she wants to fuck seeing as
how you’re talking loud enough she can probably hear every
word.”

Lucien and Damien both turned to glare
at Basil before they returned their attention to one another. After
eyeing each other speculatively for several moments, they both
relaxed their stance.

“
Later, brother. As much
as I hate agreeing with Basil, this isn’t the time or the place to
settle this,” Lucien said pointedly and far more mildly than
before.

Damien studied him a moment longer and
finally nodded. “When this is over I’m going to kick your ass,
though.”

“
You can try.”

“
Maybe I’ll kick both your
asses?” Basil said as the two men climbed the steps to the porch.
“We’re here to take care of her, not let her get killed while we
fight over who’s going to screw her.”

Damien snorted. “You
couldn’t kick
my
ass, much less mine and Lucien’s.”

“
Speaking of which,”
Lucien said tightly, “you need to go relieve Kane, Basil. I’ll take
first watch here. Damien you can catch some Zs. I’ll wake you when
it’s your time.”

Damien shrugged. “I’m not that tired.
You look beat. Why don’t you rest and I’ll take first
watch?”

Lucien looked like he wanted to argue,
but he dismissed it. “Fine. Just stay frosty. Until we’re sure they
didn’t manage to track us here we can’t afford to
relax.”

Not that there was a hell of a lot of
chance of that after the confrontation with Damien, Lucien thought
irritably as he went inside and headed for the second
bedroom.

He didn’t know what pissed him off
more—the fact that Damien had challenged him over Laurie, or that
he’d challenged him at all.

The problem with being pack leader
when your brother was part of the pack was that the brother always
wanted to challenge for dominance. He supposed that might be
because Damien was his identical twin and there wouldn’t have been
a problem otherwise, but somehow he doubted it. He was pretty sure
there would still have been sibling rivalry on top of pack rivalry
even if Damien had simply been ‘A’ brother, not an identical
twin.

Then again, he didn’t recall that
they’d clashed much until they’d passed through the
vortex.

Before their beasts seemed to take
over.

They’d never been much for talk—not
about personal stuff—so they hadn’t discussed their feelings on the
subject of finding themselves changed/changing into monsters. He
didn’t know whether Damien—well any of them—were having trouble
dealing with it or not, but he was having a hard enough time trying
to ignore his own anxieties and had no desire to invite them to
unload on him. He didn’t want to think about it. He sure as hell
didn’t want to discuss it.